Buyers’ Commitment

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Studies indicate that potential buyers of an expensive product are more likely to go through with their purchase if they have first made a purchase of a related product, such as an inexpensive product sold by the same company in the same place. Psychologists attribute this behavior to commitment bias, in which people's present actions are influenced by a desire to act consistently with their past actions. A company that sells expensive products will increase sales of these items by first inducing customers to buy inexpensive, easy-to-sell items.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the interpretation of the studies?

The effect noted in the studies applies to purchases made both in person and online.

Customers who have already declared their intent to purchase one item from such a company will not act on their intention by purchasing an inexpensive product in place of an expensive product.

Not all companies that sell expensive products have inexpensive, easy-to-sell items available to sell.

Commitment bias has been found to be equally strong for purchase made by cash and by credit card.

The perception that buying an expensive product is consistent with a past purchase of an inexpensive item is strengthened if both of those products prominently feature the same company branding.

Review: Buyers' Commitment

Explanation

Reading the question: The argument seems reasonable, which make a question difficult. The question asks us to strengthen this argument, and to do that we're going to have to be tough and weaken it. Supposing that we can't come up with a filter, we can move straight to the answer choices and use the negation test.

Logical proof: Choice (A) doesn't strengthen the argument itself. If we negate (A)--it applies only to in person, for example--sales might still go up somewhat, and the argument could still be true. So (A) is out. (C) doesn't strengthen the argument--it points out a problem. So (C) is not the answer. (D) is similar to (A) and out on similar grounds. (E) is out, which we can confirm by denying it and finding it's not relevant to the argument. That leaves us with (B). Negating (B) gives us: "Customers who have already declared their intent to purchase one item from such a company will act on their intention by purchasing an inexpensive product in place of an expensive product." This statement would mean people who are already committed to buy something buy the little thing, not the big thing. If that's true, that's a huge problem. So establishing the opposite point of the negation, as (B) does, does strengthen the argument. The correct answer is (B).

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Buyers’ Commitment